Young and Bad
by Cara Hetland
April 2000
Juveniles are responsible for nearly one in every five crimes. The numbers support a growing sense among rural residents that kids are causing more and more trouble. The debate over what we do with delinquents has come full circle.
The century-old juvenile-court system was created allowing
states control over delinquent teens. Some say we need to reach out to these kids before they get in trouble; others say hold them responsible.
Each state takes a different approach. Some focus on boot camps, others are using a form of community intervention.
Regardless of the focus, experts say these programs only work for some of the kids and there has to be a balance in order to reach all of the kids before they wind up in the adult system.
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Photo: Cara Hetland
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"LEVI"
is one of 100 teenagers serving four-and-a-half months at South Dakota's boot camp for boys. He wears a khaki uniform and has a shaved head. Any hints of colored hair or pierced body parts are gone. Levi and his 23 platoon members all look and act the same. His voice is hoarse from yelling identity-free responses to his drill instructor.
Levi is from a small South Dakota town. He says he started drinking when he was eight, smoked pot at 11 and by 17, he stopped going to school. A recent report says rural teens are 70 percent more likely to get drunk and more likely to smoke marijuana than their urban peers.
Levi is just completing his first month at boot camp. Lesson number one: learn the rules. How to make the bed. How to act in the lunch room.
Each platoon lines up at a long bench-style table. Everything about their meal is by direction. On command they line up to get food, on command they sit, and on command they eat.
Each private must hold three utensils fanned out in front of his face to get a tray of food. The utensils are all accounted for when the eating stops.
Mark Snyder is the consummate retired Marine colonel and director of the boot camp. His gaze shows he means business and commands respect, but he makes time in the hall to ask a cadet how he's feeling. Snyder says the boot camp's philosophy gives a kid the tools to succeed in life.
"Self respect, discipline, confidence, spirit, pride, motivation, need to succeed, what it's going to do to them in the future, all of those things," Snyder says.
Critics of the boot-camp approach say those goals can be achieved without a military style. Research shows kids who are addicted to drugs and alcohol and who commit minor offenses have deeper problems that need a different sort of attention.
Larry Brendtro says given the right environment, most kids can turn their lives around. The president of Reclaiming Youth International says the current "get tough" attitude toward kids is simply a return to another era. But what is new, is the research saying kids need direction and counseling and education.
"If all we have is 'I'm here and I care' approach, the kids will run right over the top of you," he says. "If all we have is 'I'm going to shape you up' approach, the kids will either comply and play games or rebel. The only approach that works is to combine elements of both of those; setting extremely high demands on young people, not that they be obedient, but that they be responsible but then setting high demands on adults that they meet the needs of young people entrusted in their care."
Boot camp director Mark Snyder says counseling and education is the primary focus of his program. He says the cadets need the direction and discipline his staff demands.
The boys' boot camp in South Dakota is just one of several programs in the Custer Youth Corrections Center. There is a work camp and a center for boys who have completed the work and boot camps, but don't have a good home situation to return to. They attend Custer High School and can work in the community, but live within the confines of the center.
Twelve miles away is the facility for girls. It's designed for girls who've experienced chemical and sexual abuse and focuses primarily on counseling and education. A more intensive physical program will begin this summer.
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Sioux Falls psychologist J.C. Chambers counsels kids after they're released from South Dakota's boot camp. He's seen kids turn their lives around.
Photo: Cara Hetland
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"The boot camp philosophy doesn't work for girls," says director Melody Tromburg. "It's in-your-face stuff for the boys; and the girls, it's more of a relationship-building to work more on the emotional issues."
This is a new way of thinking for South Dakota. The state closed its girls boot camp last month following the death last July of Gina Score. The 14-year-old died of hypothermia following a forced run. The state currently faces multiple lawsuits alleging abuse at the state training school and juvenile prison in Plankinton.
Mark Snyder says his program is about tough treatment and high expectations.
"They talk about abuses at the boot camp, they don't happen here; we don't tolerate it, we've never tolerated it," he says. "We terminate people who are being mean, mean-spirited. We don't need those people here. We need people who are demanding, can run a tightly-structured program, yet be compassionate and understanding and want to touch these kids."
Physical training is an important but gradual step in the program, showing kids there is a better high than using drugs.
Seventeen-year-old "Levi" has learned to agree with that. "Before, this private couldn't even run a mile without feeling like this private was going to fall over and die," he says. "But we're just ending the first month of boot camp and we're already running two miles without stopping. I feel it builds you up. Feels good when you do something you didn't know you could do."
The boot camp model is not a new one, nor is thinking kids are a lost cause. There are examples in history, according to Larry Brendtro, who trains teachers to reach out to kids before they get in trouble. He says the 1930s was the most difficult time for delinquent kids. Millions of juveniles were riding the rails, there was no employment, the conditions were brutal.
The highest murder rate in this century occurred in 1935 because of all the economic and social problems.
Brendtro says people were so outraged with the younger generation. They referred to it as the "lost generation."
And so, the first boot camp - the Civilian Conservation Corps - was created. They were work camps with a military flavor. The emphasis was on service, productivity and a paycheck. Brendtro says the camps turned a lot of kids around and still stands as one of history's most significant efforts to rehabilitate troubled kids.
Kids in the 1940s had a purpose: the war effort. In the '50s and '60s, the baby-boom children stretched and tested first the education system, and then the nation's social traditions.
Brendtro says there have been many experimental programs over the last several decades to keep kids out of trouble.
Sioux Falls psychologist J.C. Chambers counsels kids after they're released from South Dakota's boot camp. He's seen kids turn their lives around.
"(The) reason kids who did well did well was because some commander spent a little extra time with these kids and that relationship is what did change," he says. "Not because the program worked. Ask kids,'Why?,' they'll say, 'While I was in the boot camp I started listening to Mr. Dansler and he started to make sense to me.' That's why their heart changed."
The gray walls and chain-linked fences of the South Dakota boot camp are often the first glimpse of the corrections system kids see. Several states are starting to close boot camps, looking for other ways to punish kids. Some focus on more community-based counseling programs. Others are getting even tougher; trying more teenagers as adults. It appears that a trend has begun. As kids commit more violent crimes, people are calling for justice. That means teenagers doing hard time in prison.
NEXT: Kids in Prison
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